Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'

I’m not sure exactly when I first encountered vaping. I was leading an editing workshop. I explained the house rules, which included “No Smoking.” One participant pulled out an e-cigarette. “Is this okay?” he asked.

He said he was trying to quit smoking.

After some discussion, the group let him vape. We were wrong.

It took 500 years for western civilization to recognize the risks of tobacco smoking. The hazards of vaping have become all too evident in one decade.

I can accept that the Spanish explorers who brought tobacco from America to Europe had no idea of its harmful effects. They had no ill intentions. Smoking was simply a novelty.

I cannot accept that their successors, the tobacco companies who aggressively marketed cigarettes through the 20thcentury, did not know that their product caused harm. The medical evidence was overwhelming. Smoking made almost every ailment worse, from cancer to heart disease.